Major Verizon Outage Leaves Thousands Without US Mobile Service, Including Some 911 Calls
A crippling outage at Verizon has left thousands of customers in the United States without access to mobile service, including some who are unable to make emergency calls due to their phone's SOS mode. The issue began around noon ET on Wednesday and affected both wireless voice and data services for many users.
Verizon has issued a statement acknowledging the problem and assuring its engineers are working to resolve it as quickly as possible. However, with AT&T and T-Mobile customers also reporting service disruptions in the same timeframe, some analysts believe that this outage could be more extensive than initially thought.
DownDetector, an outage tracking site, showed a spike in reports of Verizon's service disruptions, with many users on both iOS and Android devices experiencing issues that prevented them from making calls or accessing data. The situation is so severe that Washington, D.C.'s official emergency alert channel warned its citizens about the potential for some to be unable to connect using their Verizon Wireless device during an emergency.
According to mobile network security researcher Syed Rafiul Hussain at Purdue University in Indiana, it's unlikely that this outage was a coordinated attack on Verizon's network. Instead, he speculated that the issue could be due to a server configuration problem within the telecom giant's core network.
By roughly 10:20 pm ET Wednesday, Verizon announced that they had resolved their service issues, advising affected customers to restart their devices to reconnect and offering account credits for those impacted by the disruption.
A crippling outage at Verizon has left thousands of customers in the United States without access to mobile service, including some who are unable to make emergency calls due to their phone's SOS mode. The issue began around noon ET on Wednesday and affected both wireless voice and data services for many users.
Verizon has issued a statement acknowledging the problem and assuring its engineers are working to resolve it as quickly as possible. However, with AT&T and T-Mobile customers also reporting service disruptions in the same timeframe, some analysts believe that this outage could be more extensive than initially thought.
DownDetector, an outage tracking site, showed a spike in reports of Verizon's service disruptions, with many users on both iOS and Android devices experiencing issues that prevented them from making calls or accessing data. The situation is so severe that Washington, D.C.'s official emergency alert channel warned its citizens about the potential for some to be unable to connect using their Verizon Wireless device during an emergency.
According to mobile network security researcher Syed Rafiul Hussain at Purdue University in Indiana, it's unlikely that this outage was a coordinated attack on Verizon's network. Instead, he speculated that the issue could be due to a server configuration problem within the telecom giant's core network.
By roughly 10:20 pm ET Wednesday, Verizon announced that they had resolved their service issues, advising affected customers to restart their devices to reconnect and offering account credits for those impacted by the disruption.